The Wrestling Doctor 07.01.08: Restructuring the WWE - Again

Posted by W.S. Thomason on 07.01.2008

The Wrestling Doctor puts on the latex gloves and gets out the sigmoid scope in an attempt to find the WWE's head.

THE WRESTLING DOCTOR: THE PRESCRIPTION FOR WHAT AILS


THE SECOND OPINION

Some clarification on last week's column:

WCW programming was depleted in 1998 not by taking Nitro to three hours, but by taking Nitro to three hours and adding two more hours in the form of Thunder. A three hour Nitro would not have been such a train wreck if WCW could have concentrated their efforts on writing one show, as opposed to writing three hours on Monday and then having to follow up with two more hours on Thursday. Nitro was a much better show in 1996-1997 because WCW did not have to spread their talent and their angles so thin. Taking Raw to three hours while deleting the other brands would not re-create the situation that crippled WCW.

Five hours of weekly television was certainly not the only problem that WCW had in 1998, but the pressure of so much television greatly contributed to the company's ultimate downfall. Five hours of television was too much for WCW, and it is currently too much for the WWE.

McMahon is currently stifled by some of the similar restrictions that hampered Eric Bischoff after WCW became successful. The Turner organization wanted a WCW product to boost TBS the same way that Nitro had benefited TNT, so Thunder was born. TBS refused to pay for the production, so WCW took Nitro to three hours in January 1998 in order to generate enough ad revenue to cover the cost of Thunder. WCW was then trapped in a vicious cycle of television time tied to revenue, revenue tied to ratings, ratings tied to booking, and booking tied to television time. The only solution was to reduce their television time, but they could not do so without losing a tremendous amount of money. The company continued to water down their shows until they finally accepted a financial loss and cut Nitro back to two hours in the fall of 1999, but it was long after the company had sustained permanent damage. They never canned Thunder, though they should have in the fall of 1999 instead of moving the show to Wednesdays.

The WWE is in a similar predicament. Their product has considerably deteriorated since they started producing five hours of weekly television in June 2006. The quality of programming that builds and sustains audiences is simply not there. The WWE has over-extended its on and off-screen talent in the same manner as WCW a decade ago. Cutting a show or two is a viable solution, but such a move could rattle stockholders and cost the company a tremendous amount of money. What McMahon needs now is to find a way to gracefully reorganize his product without shaking the confidence of his shareholders.

In short, three hours of programming for the WWE is better than five, and they should take the out when they find it. Many options are possible – a three-hour Raw being only one – with the most likely being a return to the dueling Monday and Friday brands.

More on that idea further down, but first I have to apologize to Jarrod about the cold hands. Sorry, dude, but I find that patients respond best after I've spent a morning arm wrestling with Glacier. Nothing like a quality angle to send your tag team division running for shelter.

THIS WEEK'S PATIENT: THE WWE DRAFT
Last week was the WWE draft, the company's annual minimally invasive exam, and now fans, internet hacks, and couch bookers are left to make sense of the unexpected output.

The draft special itself was not as bad as it could have been – until the last half hour. The difference maker was the lack of backstage segments, which put more focus on actual wrestling matches. Most of the bouts were generic three-minute routs, but The Hardys vs. Morrison / Miz and Cena vs. Edge were not bad for contemporary free WWE television. The show would have been better with more even match-ups and minus the million dollar giveaway segments. The idea of a tri-brand battle royal was not a bad one for the show, but a poor choice for the ending, particularly with the embarrassing manhandling of the ECW roster. The McMahon injury was an inane rehashing of the poorly executed death angle from last year. It also is a bit tasteless – even for the WWE – considering the close proximity to the anniversary of the real tragedy that prematurely ended the mystery last year. The WWE needed to get out of the million dollar giveaways, but one would think that they would have come up with an exit strategy before taking the idea public.

The biggest weakness with the Mr. McMahon injury angle is that people do not sympathize with him. The character draws his power from being the embodiment of all that wrestling fans despise. They want to see McMahon get a Stunner or take a Rock Bottom, not receive gestures of goodwill. Any hospital footage of McMahon should involve a blow to the head and a bedpan. And Shane McMahon's sugarcoated promo at the beginning of this week's Raw is not going to cut it.

The most thorough aspect of last week's Raw was the complete burying of the ECW brand. They did not skimp on showing that Tuesday night is home to the "C" show. The harsh treatment may be a harbinger of the WWE's aforementioned graceful exit from five hours of weekly programming. Cutting ECW would be the logical starting place to rebalancing Raw and Smackdown without a sudden hemorrhage of revenue. The draft showed that the company could care less about the brand. They have stripped ECW of all of its major talent, put the belt on Mark Henry, and replaced the extraordinary Joey Styles with a play-by-play announcer who has no idea of what is occurring in or out of the ring. Matt Hardy cannot save the show on his own, and a feud with Henry is not going to drive ratings through the roof. You do not have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe that the WWE is intentionally trying to get ECW cancelled. The WWE appears to be setting itself up to quietly drop ECW this fall when their deal with Sci-Fi expires. A cancellation will give the McMahons something to spin at the stockholders meeting, whereas a unilateral, voluntary drop by the WWE would carry far more risk.

Another advantage to canceling ECW would be more depth for the other two rosters, which may allow the WWE to improve the quality of its pay-per-view offerings. When companies only ran four or five pay-per-views a year, the shows were crowded to include the majority of their talent. The talent-packing approach disappeared once the WWE started running monthly pay-per-views in May 1995 (1996 was the first 12 PPV year), but the temptation to cram in talent returned last year once tri-branded shows became the norm. The under-card matches on recent shows have been weak and standard television length. The average time for a WWE pay-per-view match in 2008 (excluding WWE Title, World Title, Elimination Chamber, and the Royal Rumble matches) is 9:46. The average drops to 8:33 if you exclude bouts involving Shawn Michaels or John Cena (yes, I did the math). Those times are no different from a lot of weekly TV bouts. The WWE should reduce the number of matches on PPV to around six and allow those matches adequate time to develop. When C.M. Punk – who can go 60 minutes – only gets seven to nine minutes per PPV appearance, a valuable asset is being wasted. Fewer matches on pay-per-view would allow the WWE time to create more interest in each match, building true "super shows" that are worth $40 – $50 a pop.

The WWE could take advantage of the two-brand depth and return to a limited number of Raw and Smackdown exclusive pay-per-views. The majority of PPVs would remain bi-branded such as the "big four" and No Way Out, Backlash, Night of Champions, and Cyber Sunday. Lesser events like Judgment Day and Unforgiven could be single brand and used to showcase the top and developing talent on each program.

The WWE could compensate for the minor revenue that they will lose in canning ECW and create more cash flow for the future by refocusing their merchandising efforts towards the 36-50 age group. The WWE has been geared towards the 18-35 demographic since the early Attitude Era, but the older audience has one substantial advantage on average.

They have more money.

Granted, these people tend to have far more responsibility than younger fans – kids, mortgages, retirement planning – but they tend to be in much stronger financial positions in spite of these additional expenses. Traditionally, this age group does not spend as much money on entertainment, but that trend has been changing. The record industry has turned to older listeners in recent years to help pad the purse as younger fans turned to alternative delivery methods of music. Covers collections by Rod Stewart and Michael McDonald have been highly successful in the age of Hip-Hop, Nu-Metal, and Emo-core. The string of #1's anthologies that have emerged since 2000 are also aimed at older buyers – and have done very well.

Recent viewer demographic information revealed that the WWE is thriving amongst men between 36 and 50 – many of whom are holdovers from last decade. The WWE has reached out to these fans through WWE 24 / 7 and various DVD collections. They have also released a series of "classic" tee shirts, but none of these areas are fully tapped.

The WWE could cash in on this lucrative market by issuing "classic" merchandise beyond what they already have. Expansive – and thus expensive – DVD sets of full years of shows like Raw and Nitro would be big sellers, as would old stand-alone pay-per-views such as the 1989 Great American Bash. The WWE could issue a full year of pay-per-views and supercards for WWF, WCW, and the original ECW in a similar style to the current Rewind box sets.

The company could expand their figurine offerings to include collectible sculptures of classic moments, such as Hulk Hogan slamming Andre the Giant or The Undertaker throwing Mankind from the top of the Hell in a Cell. The involvement of a well-known figurine artist like Todd McFarlane could add credibility and value to such pieces, and demarcate the line between the collectibles and the more toy-like offerings. Just look around your place or your parent's basement (hell, those places are probably one in the same) for evidence of the purchasing power of nostalgia.

The current tee shirt line could be expanded to not only utilize a wider range of wrestlers, but also include old (legal) logos and events. Classic tee shirts would likely attract the younger, ironic audience, which would add more revenue to the stream. The Andre the Giant Has A Posse street art phenomena proves that indie irony is an untouched market for wrestling merchandising. Stop into a Hot Topic and ask yourself if the kids today are really that into Whitesnake. The WWE should care less if these kids love or hate the product – I doubt that Poison minds that hipster kids are ironically buying their shirts, albums, and concert tickets. The bottom line recognizes no such difference.

The increase in income from merchandising would allow the company to scale back their touring schedule in the interest of their performers' health as well as reduce their television commitments in order to produce a better product. After all, a better product today creates a long-term fan base and a stronger nostalgia audience for the future.

Many skeptics will say that the WWE would have already exploited these areas if there was indeed gold to be mined. Not so – because the ultimate decider of all things WWE is still Vince McMahon. Vince hates for his current product to be overshadowed by the past. The fear is legitimate, but he often takes it to extremes. McMahon also hates to give credit to creators other than himself, so the wealth of profit contained in the WCW and original ECW libraries will never be fully realized.

My hope is that sagging ratings for Raw and the challenge of rebuilding Smackdown will reignite the competitive fire in Vince McMahon's gut that has been missing since he purchased WCW. Last night's Raw was a minor step forward – Michael Cole and the handful-of-tights disqualification excluded – so maybe things are beginning to move in the right direction.

Who am I kidding? There's nothing up here but shit.